Studies in modern molecular biology have discovered that a lot of kinases play an important role in the process of cell growth and cell division, and some other studies have proved that the overexpression of kinases involves cell oncogenesis, cancer cell over-proliferation, cell malignancy, and metastasis. As such, developing kinase inhibitors as effective anti-cancer medications has become an important aim in the field of anti-cancer drug research and development. Currently, the drug industry all over the world has invested greatly in order to develop novel kinase inhibitors, and therefore there are several kinase-inhibitor-based anti-cancer drugs on the market, such as Novartis's Gleevec, AastraZeneca's Iressa and Pfizer's Sutent which have been approved to be clinically effective and have high market share. The azaazulene compound, 3-(5-(4-(3-fluoropropyl)piperazin-1-yl)benzimidazol-2-yl)-1-azaazulen-2-one, is a kind of small-molecule kinase inhibitor, which is capable of inhibiting a plurality of kinases. Therefore, it may be used as the anti-cancer drug and diagnostic reagent in the future.
Different crystalline forms of a specific drug might result in variations of solubility, melting point, stability, bioavailability, and the like. Therefore, it is desirable that a novel crystalline form of the azaazulene compound with homogeneity, stability, reproducibility, and processability should be found for further development.